Well, apparently cyclone Monica isn't coming till Sunday afternoon now. Since I've spent the last couple of days frantically preparing for her to hit us Saturday morning, I guess I can sit back and just wait her arrival now.
So, on a lighter note, I have been doing some comparison between girls and boys ever since my son came along.
Seriously, although everyone says my boy is such a good boy, how he's so good natured and beautiful, when it's just between the two of us, he can be very rough. He pulls my hair, climbs all over me, loves jumping on me and bouncing off me and goes absolutely crazy. I must admit sometimes I would wonder if this child has got ADHD but when I compare him with other boys, he is pretty normal and even err on the gentler side. He can sit still and 'read' (he loves flipping through books) a book and he explores his surrounding while the other boys around him are busy making the other children cry. Mind you, he can also give as good as he gets (hair pulling and pinching) when he's in the mood. So compared to other boys, he's normal. But compared to girls, he's a handful and very physical.
I've also noticed how he loves cars and would skip the soft toys in the toy shop. Now I've never given him a car toy until he could say the word car. But I've given him lots of soft toys as a baby. It really puzzles me. There was once there was a girl (a couple of years older than my boy though) in the same toy shop and the contrast couldn't be sharper. She was going to a soft toy, saying "aaaawww... how cute" and my son was banging away at all the cars he could see in sight! Maybe it's the age difference as well. I'm not sure. I'm still observing but at the moment I'm inclined towards the view that some behaviours are definitely testerone induced!
Men and women are biologically different not only in the physical sense but in the chemical sense as well. Men are wired differently from women. Thus, may be, James Dobson's book, Bringing Up Boys need a closer look. Apparently it's written with that view that God has made boys to operate differently and therefore needs to be nurtured with a different mindset rather than boys and girls are born asexual and are nurtured to become boys or girls. (The books is finally on it's way here in the next bookshop order by my church).
I used to think the differences between men and women were more factors of nurture than nature. But I'm beginning to change my views.
What's your view?
6 comments:
Well, here are Faith's first 3 words in chronological order.
1) Papa (I was sooooo proud)
2) Bag
3) Mama (I was soooo smug that she wasn't even No.2. ha ha.)
Can you imagine Faith placing "Bag" before "Mama"? I bet it's the oestrogen and proestrogen talking there. ahahahah
Well, we observed the same with our kids. We were careful to ensure they were both exposed to "other gender" toys (except clothes, Sofia refused to let Jason wear pink).
But, Jason always preferred boy toys - cars, trucks, dinosaurs, etc and Tania has always preferred girl toys - beads, dolls, etc.
It is something hard for me to come to grips with because I always believed (and still do) that our souls are genderless.
And for a long time (until about 3 years ago), I saw no point in the resurrection of the body. After all, why resurrect teh body when the soul is eternal?
However, I came to my senses and realized that our wholeness, our completeness is in our being body and soul. I am a man not because I have a manly soul but because I have a man's body. The divine spirit with the body makes me whole. So, in the resurrection, I will be whole.
So, I believe that there are definitely gender differences, but those differences must not be used as excuses for bad or immoral behaviour - we are rational beings, not dogs.
Jay: That's interesting. I haven't drawn the comparison with their first words...
Let me see. Ky's first words but out of context were: 1) Dadadada & mumumum 3)mah-mee-mah-mee-mah-mee which usually ends with mee-mah rather than mah-mee. I don't think they count.
The ones in context were 1)Flower, 2)Water, 3)Car 4)Ball 5)Pool 6)Pooh, 7)Clooka (ie clock) 8)hair (this is the newest).
Richard: Souls as genderless... hmmmm I'll have to agree with your that God created us Body, Mind and Spirit and all three are intertwined for complete wholeness. If one aspect suffers, so will the other two. That's my belief. But I've never really thought very much about gender souls. Interesting.
I'd love to revisit this reply again when things here settle a bit more.
So you too have been "proven" wrong, huh?
No, I was not proven wrong, I simply managed to find my way.
The problem lies in having an immortal soul and a mortal body. Since the body is mortal, it perishes and since the soul is immortal, why require the resurrection of a perishable body (even if its resurrected form will be imperishable)?
If I start believing that souls are gendered, then I go back to having problems with resurrection of the body again :-)
Let me clarify, so you still believe the soul may be genderless, like God is genderless but the body is not, and that's what makes the gender differences? Our resurrected body... who knows what that will be like? Gender or genderless? I don't have a problem believing that the resurrected body may be genderless which is consistent with Jesus saying there will be no marriage in heaven. Maybe gender differences is only an earthly thing.
I always found this topic very interesting. We used to discuss what the new resurrected body will be like because imagine a baby who died and end up in heaven, what will his maturity and heavenly being be? Will there be further growth in heaven? Hahaha... it gets more hairy!
Yes, I continue to believe the soul is genderless. I base my belief on the first story of creation (Genesis 1) where it says: God created man in His image. Male and female he made them.
Some place more emphaisis on the second story of creation (Genesis 2) where God formed man (Adam) out of the clay (adamah) and breathed His spirit into him. Eve on the other hand was created out of man, but does not seem to have recieved the same spirit that Adam had.
I prefer the first story.
I believe that we will be resurrected with our gendered bodies, since my current understanding is that we are not complete without both spirit (the soul) and gender (attribute of our bodies).
One woman I used to teach religion with used to refer to our resurrected bodies as our glorified bodies.
How will we look? Hmmm ... on Easter Sunday, the pastor was saying he believes we will be resurrected with a body that looks around 14 years old (as he was pointing to elderly people in the congregation, "Pretty good deal for a lifetime of faithfulness")
I don't worry about that at the moment - I have other philosophical questions to fry my soul.
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